On Friday January 20th, we reached Upper Dir Aljareeza Hotel at 12:30 pm. Our plan was to arrive at tunnel by 2 pm and get through. But our vehicles were lined up at Dir and at 8:30 pm the convoy coming from Chitral ended and we reached tunnel (Dir side) at 9:30 pm. It was commendable that AC Dir and his staff were present at Dir dealing issues and dozens of police jawans were also on the roads at various points to troubleshoot problems which were mostly created by trucks carrying tons of goods. However at tunnel we had to wait for 3 more hours and at 1:00 AM we crossed lawari tunnel and reached Ziarat. Again jawans of Chitral scouts, police or army were seen directing the vehicles. Trucks kept creating problems for local passengers by not moving ahead and being stuck at several places. From Ziarat to Baradam it took 2.5 hours creeping. In almost 24 hours we reached Ziarat Chitral from Islamabad.
District Administrations on both sides are doing a good job but I think given the huge traffic through tunnel it's simply not possible to manage the transportation in a 2 days per week schedule by Chitral and Dir administration. It simply is not possible. We have hundreds of passenger vehicles and trucks with goods on these two days. The roads are frozen with snow. Two vehicles cannot overtake or give way. So how can all vehicles moving at 15km/hr reach their destination at right times ? If only one truck is stuck on the road all the 330 vehicles have to wait till it is moved.
Therefore we would request Govt to :
- Stop work in tunnel at least in winters so that on average 50 vehicles per day travel from each side.
- Saturday and Sunday be allotted to goods transporters ( trucks, mazda etc) only. Rest of the days they should not be allowed to travel.
- A medical camp should be available at tunnel project site for local passengers esp older ppl, children & women.
Right now, it's 3:00 AM and we are stuck near Baradam Ziarat. As I said, even if Hercules comes to rescue us this 2days/week schedule won't work.
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